Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan JANET ATTWOOD: Welcome, everyone, to the Dialogues with the Masters call. This is Janet Attwood, and I am so honored that you are here this morning, or this evening, wherever you are. I happen to be, at this point in time, in Baroda, India. I am with seven other of my wonderful, wonderful Passion Test-certified facilitators, who have accompanied me to visit some of the wonderful, wonderful saints who are in the book, The Passion Test. We’ve traveled not only to Baroda, but also to Rishikesh, Uttarkashi and a number of other places. It is wonderful to be speaking to all of you. Today our guest is Amarananda Bhairavan, affectionately known as Nandu. Nandu is an internationally renowned Vedic priest and Master Healer. During his joyous childhood amongst an extended family on the west coast of India, Amarananda trained in Oti vidya, a tantra unique to Odiyyathis, or tribal medicine women, of Kerala. Initiated at the age of nine by his aunt, Amarananda Bhairavan remains a direct descendent of this 6,000-year-old tradition of goddess worship. His mystical education and initiations in the ancient Oti vidya tantric practices are the subject of his two visionary books: Kali’s Odiyya: A Shaman’s True Story of Initiation and Medicine of Light: A Shaman’s Journey Through Mystic Space-Time. A Vedic scholar, mystic, artist, and author, Amarananda Bhairavan holds a master’s degree in Sanskrit from the University of Bangalore, Bangalore India and a master’s degree in physical therapy. He has guided countless in their pursuit of the mysticism of the sacred feminine. His sacred yantra paintings adorn homes and temples throughout the United States and India. Amarananda regularly travels the world giving lectures and workshops, performing pujas and fire ceremonies, and conducting private consultations and healing rituals. He leads a seminar series called Deep Soul Healing which embodies the best of the Vedic, Tantric, and tribal Mysticism of India. Embodying a rare combination of wisdom, compassion, humility, and transformative power, Amarananda uses ancient Oti vidya rituals to purify consciousness and remedy stress. Amarananda also teaches classes on the painting of sacred yantras as a spiritual ritual for empowerment and devotion. His next book, Aghora Rahasyam-Tantric Mysticism and A Doctrine on Consciousness, is currently in progress. Nandu, this is Janet, and I am so happy that you are with us today. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: I am very happy to be with you all. Namaste to all of you. ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan JANET ATTWOOD: Namaste. I think it is so interesting, Nandu, that you are in my birth home, my birth city even, right? You are in Los Angeles, aren’t you? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes, I am in Los Angeles. JANET ATTWOOD: I am in your birth country, which I think is pretty fun. It is wonderful to be here, in wonderful India and being able to talk to you. Thank you again. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Likewise. JANET ATTWOOD: I am just going to start right in. For everyone listening, excuse the background noise. This is a call from India, and India always has background noise. If for some reason—because this has happened before—we get cut off, all of a sudden everyone is wondering where I am. Chris, are you there? CHRIS ATTWOOD: I am here, Janet. JANET ATTWOOD: You could take over, okay? CHRIS ATTWOOD: Yes. JANET ATTWOOD: You know everything is perfect. Nandu, can you explain Oti vidya and tantra? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. Oti vidya is a distillation of a mystic practice that originated, probably, several thousand years before South India got permeated by the Vedic system of belief. At that time, there were strong, matriarchal communities in the South and the women, especially, had their own culture and traditions that they kept alive through their covenants. The product of their mysticism, their studies of the mysticism and the spirit, evolved into what is called the Oti vidya practices. Over time, when the Vedic system amalgamated with the aboriginal knowledge of this women’s sacred mysticism, it evolved into what is called the current day Tantra, the goddess Shakti Patantra, so it is a fusion of these two cultures that happened at a later time. Oti vidya came to be preserved in its original forms among pockets of teachers, students, lineages that are even now scattered throughout many parts of South India. That is called the Oti vidya. Oti is a Malayalam word. Malayalam is the language of South India; in Kerala especially. It means, for want of a better word, it is kind of sorcery, but sorcery ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan with a good connotation of the knowledge of the other realm. It is the ability for the person who practices this vidya. Like in any mysticism, it is to be able to move from this realm to the other and back again in very fluid states. That means they have a strong idea to be with both realms of existence, the physical world as well as the other world. They bring forward a great amount of knowledge of the pranic realm into this world; they are like medicine men and women. That, in essence, is what Oti vidya is. ‘Vidya’ means knowledge; ‘Oti’ is the sacred signs of this knowledge of transcending and transitioning between two realms. JANET ATTWOOD: When you talk about it being a connotation, a good connotation, is there a bad connotation? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Like with any path, there are both ways; it is like a knife. A knife can be used for good purposes as well as bad purposes. The mind can sometimes be trained into areas that are much darker. Yes, there are brethren of our lineage that have gone into the darker side of things. They follow their ascension along a path of awareness gradient that takes them down into the lower realms. They ascend up that way. They seek their knowledge through that. My teacher and my teacher’s teacher, their line of teachers has always going upward and sought the light through self-abnegation, devotion and mystic practices that bring up the light and the spirit. JANET ATTWOOD: What is the relationship of the Aghora and Oti vidya? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Aghora and Oti vidya are, I would say, sister branches of the same mysticism. There are some inter-linkages of their practices, but Aghoris have some very specialized practices that we do not. We have certain very specialized practices that the Aghoris do not. One distinctive feature between us is this. Odiyyathis rely a lot on the spirits of the plants and the trees to seek their knowledge. They were originally, as I mentioned, in the Oti vidya introduction, the aboriginal people who were so conversant with the local flora, not in the botanical essence, but in the spiritual essence. They could communicate with them. They had the wherewithal to move into the space, the consciousness, sentient space of this plant world and seek the wisdom from them. On the other hand, I know very little about the Aghora practices but, from hearsay, they work a lot with necrotic systems and things that are decaying. It is a path to reduce all divisions of the mind, and they have a lot of sadhanas related to the smashan, or the ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan burial ground, as well as with the skull, so to speak. That is the extent of my knowledge about that system, the Aghora system. JANET ATTWOOD: Are there different Aghora traditions? If so, where did yours come from? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes, yes. Within the Aghora, the broad Aghora system, there are different lineages with subtle differences brought about by the individual genus of the teachers. They have covered certain, very specific, elements of sadhana that are passed down to their own lineage of students. There are some distinctions, but overall they have their own methodology, and their techniques are slightly different. If you look at the end result, both the Aghoris and the Odiyyathis seek to have mastery of prana and the knowledge of their own body, mind and spirit, and the ability to move between all the realms with great ease. That is why one of my principle teachers is Mata [indiscernible name 10:58], who is an Aghori, other than my own teacher. JANET ATTWOOD: Then you go into goddess worship, right? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. JANET ATTWOOD: This is a part of your practice; can you talk about that? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. The goddess worship is central to our cosmology. It is an inheritance of the women’s discoveries, sacred feminist movement from very ancient times. The sacred feminine in South India from very ancient times had connotations of the universe or the cosmos as a reflection of the great cosmic feminine, [indiscernible name 11:42] , also called Adya, the first primal feminine being. Adya is the flip side of Brahman. Brahman is the trans-cosmic neutrality. We do not know what that is. It is beyond space, time, and perception. At a certain time, for want of a better word, at a certain point the Brahman flips and forms what is called the first feminine form, Adya. Adya cascades into other forms, and finally there is Kali. The 10 wisdom goddesses form the backbone of all Oti vidya mysticism. The first to worship is Kali. Kali is the first form of the 10 cosmic wisdoms. Every student in lineage is instructed into the worship, meditations and the ritualistic techniques of accessing the great body of wisdom that underlie the 10 Cosmic Wisdoms. ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan We have certain aspects specifically to awaken and realize these spirit beings: Kali, Tara, Kamala and so on; the 10 goddesses. JANET ATTWOOD: It is interesting that you mention Kali, because I just yesterday visited the Kali Temple in Delhi. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: I am not familiar with the temple there, but I haven’t traveled very much either. JANET ATTWOOD: Can you explain to everyone a little about Kali and who she is? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. From the perspective of the lineage that I come from, Kali is the first among the 10 goddesses of wisdom. She is considered the birther of the cosmos. In one of her artistic depictions she is seen as birthing this cosmos, and so she is the mother, the primal mother, or the Parashakti. In Sanskrit, it means the transcendent nature, the substratum of all creation. She is also the womb of creation. In the Vedic system we understand her as Hiranya Garbha, the golden womb. It is her golden womb that gives birth to all manifestations. It is also the source point of Ohm, the primal sound, the sound of the power of creation. That is Kali, but Kali has other forms in the mythology of India. She has her more destructive aspects too. Those are all minor forms, actually, compared to this primal attribute as Badra Kali, or the great auspicious creator, creatrix of the cosmos. In our mythology, the cosmologist, the Oti vidya practitioners, understand Kali as this great transcendent being on par with Brahman. Actually, she is the flip side Brahman. When Brahman flips into Kali, she regularly spews out into the cosmos a great stream of her menstrual blood. This is the understanding of the tribal practitioners in my lineage. This menstrual blood has billions of little eggs dotted in it. Each of those eggs is a potential cosmos. Some of them might evolve into huge universes like our own and some of them may not. The mystics have discovered 12 such classifications of these great cosmoses and have given different names to these classes of cosmos. At the core of each of the cosmos is a central sun. The sun is called Sabita. The energy within the sun is the deity, and each of these cosmoses are her children. Kali is such a humungous being, a very large structure that transcends space-time. Permeating all the cosmoses is the essence of Kali. As the cosmos ages, Kali transforms to her next form, called Kamala. ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan After awhile, as the universe continues to age, Kamala transforms into Tara, Chinnamasta, Bhuvaneshvari, Matangi, Bagala, Dhumavati and finally, at the end stage when the cosmos is filled with so much chaos that it cannot repair any further, then this goddess transforms into Bhairavi, her end form, and she completely destroys all manifestation, absorbs it back into herself. All space-times are obliterated at that time. Curiously, the end form Bhairavi, is very similar to Kali so in many of the texts there is confusion of her forms. Actually, the destructive aspect of Kali’s is the final form Bhairavi, and it has been amalgamated in some of the religious texts. These are the 10 cosmic wisdoms, and Kali is the primal one. JANET ATTWOOD: Thank you for that clarity, because I just learned so much that I had never known before. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Thank you. JANET ATTWOOD: Nandu, you are a master of yantra. Can you explain what yantra is, and how that is used? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes, a yantra is an instrument that brings in a source of power that otherwise cannot be perceived or be manipulated. It is like a watch. You put into it some kind of energy, a mechanical energy, by winding up the spring, and then you release the energy gradually so that energy is functional and productive and perceivable by us. Also, a yantra is a geometric design, a domain into which a very powerful energy of a deity—god, goddess, angel—can come through and manifest in a non-destructive way to the devotee. A yantra is actually a space, a small, limited space-time, that the devotee can safely harness, perceive, and worship a form that is otherwise very transcendental. It cannot be too abstract for his or her senses to see and grasp. There are many such geometric designs. There are certain classical Vedic and Tantric rules by which each of these forms are construed. Every yantra is in the shape of a temple. It is a like a floor plan of a temple, really. The temple is actually the floor plan of the human being, the microcosm. They say it’s an exact replication of the microcosm, the cosmos. Everything is developed from this model of the human being. The temple space, where the [indiscernible 19:57] so perfect that the moment you enter it you are in great samadhi, or in great healing and wholeness. Also, yantra is constructed as a floor plan of ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan a little temple for the deity that we are going to worship. It has many niches, corners, energy centers, and so on. That, in essence, is a yantra. I hope this explanation helps. JANET ATTWOOD: That is beautiful. You are also a master of the Vedic science, called Jyotish. Will you explain what Jyotish is, and how you use it? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Actually, I know very little about Jyotish. I never learned Jyotish though, I’m sorry. What I have is a cluster of spirit beings who are part of my bone cluster. I am one among them, and they assist me in seeing the energy-body of the other person through what is called a rice reading. When I throw rice, these beings come into me, and I am able to see the other person’s energy-body. It is very much like seeing their horoscope. The only difference is that in a horoscope you see the planetary influences, the major planetary influences and the minor influences, and through them they know the karmic system. I don’t do that because I have no knowledge about it. My training was primarily into this prana, the life force, and the knowledge of the energy-body within. The astral body, we call it. That is the only way I know. I know nothing about astrology and Jyotish, which is Vedic astrology. JANET ATTWOOD: That’s so interesting because I have called you a number of different times, and I always thought that’s where you were getting your knowledge, from that source of Vedic astrology until tonight, until we were going through your bio. It is so interesting. What you said, what I heard you say, was that you gained your support through a cluster of spirit beings? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. JANET ATTWOOD: Can you talk a little bit more about that? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Sure. I have a cluster of spirit beings with me, and all of us together are 10. My teacher, my Parama guru, the grand teacher, is the head of this cluster, with whom I constantly invoke. My books are written about them. My aunt, actually, is one of the spirit beings, as is my cousin, Sandia. We have traveled the cosmos together for eons. This is our spirit cluster. In this incarnation, they watch out over me, and they help me go through my karmic duties. At the end, when the time is ready for me to pass into the other realm, they are there to receive me and help me transition. They also help me with helping people with their needs and problems, to find solutions for their problems. They are the ones who come in and show me, “Okay, you do this; you do that.” ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan They show me, they open my third eye to the other dimension of the being. These are very astral beings, and most of them have not incarnated as humans at all. They are altogether a different species, you could call them. The only people in the cluster who have been incarnated are myself, my teacher, my aunt, and her daughter, Sandia, and three others. I feel very strongly connected with these spirit beings because of my natal connectivity with them from many, many lifetimes. Even as an astral being, I’ve been in connection with them. There are many such clusters of beings. There are the light masters and, in many traditions, there are such clusters guiding and helping groups of people and other forms of life. JANET ATTWOOD: Do they speak to you or is it more a sense, or a feeling of, “Okay, do this next,” and then you do it? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: No, they communicate with me. It is not in a language that we can understand. My dream mind is very strong, so they speak to me through my dream mind. It is like a series of dreamings. At night, when I’m with them, they sometimes take me up into a different realm, and then put me back in the body before I wake up. I am at their complete disposal in whatever mission they have for me. There are so many like us; I am not unique in any way. There are many traditions with people like us who are being used for higher purposes and stuff. JANET ATTWOOD: The other day, when I was traveling to India—I was mentioning this earlier, before this call began—I had received a message from you. How did you put it? What were the words you used? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: It is your mystic shield. We all have a mystic shield. JANET ATTWOOD: It was blocked for travel, right? It was blocked for travel. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: Yes. JANET ATTWOOD: How did you get this information? You were so right-on that it absolutely was amazing to me. How I found it out was I got to the airport and, before I was getting my ticket to go, I looked on my Sprint Trio phone. I went to my email, and there was your email. Before I had even gone to the front of the line to get my ticket, I ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan read this from you. Where did you get that information? Right after I read the email, I walked up to the ticket counter, and they said your plane has been canceled for the next 24 hours or so. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: I have been doing a vigil for you. When you couldn’t make it, I decided to do a little vigil for you. That put me in touch with you, so I was able to see your energy-body throughout. I knew what blockages were going on. That is why I sent you that email very fast, to let you know that I was doing a vigil. JANET ATTWOOD: To clarify for everyone, I had scheduled to meet with Nandu, and then I had canceled it. Nandu, say that again, what you did. AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: I was doing a vigil; it is like keeping an eye open, like a mystic practice to help shield you, because some of your portals are open, and there are certain blockages in you. It portended difficulty during travel. To alleviate that, I was keeping a little vigil; that is why I quickly sent you that note saying there were certain blockages and that I was doing a vigil to help smooth out the process. These other things that I see in a rice reading, when I sit with a person, or over the phone, the beings help me see all of the blockages within the chakras, the marmas, the nadis, and how the astral body interacts with the physical body, the karmic elements that are currently active. All of these things show up in great clarity. Every blemish stands out, every perfection stands out, and the solutions to all those things come up. That is normally what I do in a reading. Sometimes when I am doing a vigil for other people, I am able to see these things and rectify things as needed. I do a kind of tapas to do that; tapas meaning austerity. Does it make sense? JANET ATTWOOD: Yes, absolutely. Could I ask you, so everyone else will understand, what was it that you did that unblocked that shield? I said to you over the phone, “Nandu, is there anything you can do to help me in the situation?” It was very important that I get on the plane that day because I had many people coming on a tour that I was organizing in India. You said yes, and the next thing I know, I am getting a seat on British Airways in business class when they had told me earlier over the phone that there was no way I was going to get to go on British Airways. They were full, and they had a waiting line. Then right after you said, “Yes, I’ll help you,” I walked up to the front desk. The woman doesn’t even say anything to me. ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances Dialogues with The Masters Amarananda Bhairavan She hands me my ticket and says, “By the way, I have given you an aisle seat.” What was it that you do so people will be able to call you and be able to have their blockages unblocked, basically? AMARANANDA BHAIRAVAN: To make it very simple, everybody has what is called a mystic shield around them, and the mystic shield is what gives people coherence as individuals. Without that mystic shield, they will be privy to all other people’s energies. We won’t have much individuality. We won’t have much of a protection from other people’s energies and emotions. There are times when this mystic shield collapses, or it gets tears and ruptures in it because of our life activities and the impact from environment. If people are unaware of this, gradually they can manifest into big problems, energetic problems. If the energy problems are disregarded for a long time, they can manifest in the mind as mental aberrations. If the mind and these mental aberrations are ignored, it can somatize and form part of a physical disability over time. This is the progression of the problem if it is left unrepaired. I am able to see these things as they happen, and I’m able to correct it. As soon as I catch it, I can just correct it. If it is left for long, then it becomes more and more difficult as much more complex systems get involved, and it takes much more time and energy to repair everything. Most of it is done energetically. Also, we have to work carefully not to disrupt the karmic energy, because that is what gives life to us. In essence, there are many portals to our mystic shield and our energy- body. These portals can remain open for a long time. Sometimes certain portals are closed. The question is, how long certain portals should remain open. If the portals remain open too long it can cause problems. If the portals are not open, you can’t have much of a life. Look upon the portals like the doors and windows of a house. You, the being living in the house, cannot have all the portals closed up. Then, you can’t even get out of the house. It’s no good. You need to keep the portals open. You have to open them at certain times; you have to close them at certain times. The timing is very important. Many people have mis-timing because of life activities and such. Life experiences impact them in such a way that there is a disharmony in this system of opening and closing portals. Sometimes they are unaware that certain portals are kept open too long and things can get in: spells, hoaxes and all that stuff. I am using the word ‘spell’ in a very broad way. It is not like a malicious spell. ________________________________________________________________________ ©2008 Enlightened Alliances